Leveraging Wedge Issues Among Populations Susceptible to the Influence or Control of the Islamic State

ISIS has been arguably the world's most dynamic countercultural force, with the largest extraterritorial volunteer fighting force since WWII, involving people from nearly 90 nations (Atran 2015a,b; Atran and Hamid, 2015). Despite its defeat in 2019, it aims to expand its influence across the world and destroy ours. As with any revolutionary vanguard, lack of mass popular initial support is not, in itself, a hindrance to its growth (Atran, 2015c). For obvious reasons, military responses alone are not enough to defeat ISIS completely and facilitate the emergence of a less noxious successor. In fact, ISIS explicitly ( e.g., in the manifesto that is required reading for every ISIS amir, "The Management of Chaos / Savagery," Idarat at-Tawahoush, Naji, 2004) planned terrorist attacks to drive America and its allies into direct warfare to produce the confrontation and propaganda that they need: to force host populations that do not support ISIS but cannot arm themselves or move to seek ISIS' s protection; to increase the rush of refugees in order to help destabilize NATO and our European allies; and to light up the Internet so as to incite greater violence with images of the West attacking Muslim lands. The goal of Artis is to help our country and allies defeat ISIS by harnessing knowledge and use of non-kinetic means that could bolster willingness to resist and fight among ISIS' s target and host populations, rival militant groups, and our battlefield allies.